Time to Heal

As you may know, since the beginning of this year a very crucial process has begun within the Kundalini Yoga community due to the release of the book ‘Premka, White Bird in a Golden Cage’. This book, written by a former secretary of Yogi Bhajan, revealed many disturbing stories about the man who was referred to as master of Kundalini Yoga. Unfortunately, as we have seen within many spiritual traditions and yoga schools over the past years, also this man is not exempt from abuse of his power. The book release launched an avalanche of testimonies of abuse by the hand of Yogi Bhajan, sexual, physical, emotional and financial.

Independent Investigation

3HO, the organisation founded by Yogi Bhajan, started an independent investigation by a third party who interviewed both victims and people testifying about their positive experiences with their teacher. The results of this investigation were first expected to be shared in June, but since there were so many interviews to be done and then processed into their format of investigation, the release was pushed forward. Last Friday the 14th of August the final report was shared and sent out by mail. Its stance is that it is more likely than not that Yogi Bhajan abused his students and employees.

Even though we have been aware of many of the testimonies that were already shared in allocated Facebook communities, and we didn’t doubt the sincerity of the victims, it was a tough read. The abuse suffered by the victims is very serious and the fact that it took so long for them to be heard, believed and acknowledged is disturbing. But now the time has come.

If you want to read the report, you can access it here. Please bear in mind that the content is graphic and can trigger a lot of reactions.

[wpi_designer_button id=32005]

Time to Heal

Although we have decided to part ways with Yogi Bhajans approach and his organisations, it would be foolish to just shove it aside, shrug our shoulders, letting the past be the past, because this is a tremendously important moment to allow healing to occur. Healing for the victims, healing for those who are in shock, healing for those who have lost their teacher, healing for those who knew but never spoke, healing is needed for everyone involved.

With our decision to part ways we do not wish to contribute to polarization, the classic ‘us against them’, we fully acknowledge that each and every one of us has a different way to come to terms with such a difficult issue. In this light, we honor our decision that is aligned with our heart and conscience to cherish the practice and to make ourselves available to it’s evolution into a practice that resonates with us, this time, the needs of the moment.

What does this mean on a practical level

• Since a couple of months we have started developing our own approach based on our gained experience and insights over the past ten years. This is an ongoing process and we will keep sharing more about our insights as we continue.
• We now compose yoga-sets and sequences ourselves from a compendium of exercises to work on specific themes, chakras, organs, etc. through asanas, Kundalini Yoga style exercises, meditation and pranayama. In this way we work from a foundation that is based in a much larger body of teachings that extend beyond Kundalini Yoga as taught by Yogi Bhajan.
• At this point in time we have decided to keep the Kriyas and meditations we have already recorded available on the website but for new & upcoming videos & livestreams we are no longer sharing Kriyas & meditations as taught by Yogi Bhajan. In this new material we do not tune in anymore with ‘Ong Namo Guru Dev Namo’ and also we no longer close sessions with ‘Sat Nam’.
• We will no longer actively involve the Sikhi derived elements into the yoga practice.
• We will no longer refer to Yogi Bhajan in our online guided Sadhanas and any other content. We are aware that there are still some Sadhanas online that do mention his quotes and such. In due time we will rewrite those as we progress through this transition.

Trusting the guidance of our heart

We can understand that this may give rise to many questions, we have many ourselves. For now we trust the guidance of our hearts to navigate us through this in a way that contributes to evolution, growth, unity and healing. That is our intention and we will do the best we can to bring this into practice, a practice we love to share with you.